Fortunately, he had a trio of Shadowswords under his charge. The Titan Hunter company had formed up behind a hab-block, trying to get a lock on the approaching Reaver. Its blood-red carapace reminded him of screaming hordes of berserkers, and he had to suppress a shiver. Ikeda had faced down World Eaters before, and he was familiar with the Legio Audax that served with them - as they had done so for the 10 millennia since the great Heresy. They mostly composed of Warhound Scout Titans, though, and a Reaver within their ranks was a rare sight.
No less deadly, however. It was lumbering toward them, not as swift as the Warhound hunting packs that Audax was renowned for, but faster than a Warlord. Right now, it was following the tactics of its smaller brethren, darting between towering hab-blocks to stay out of sight of the lethal volcano cannons of the Shadowsword. Instead, a single Shadowsword rolled up, its turret traversed to fire the first shot. Escorting it were Leman Russ battle tanks, Malcador tanks and legions of infantry, all of them speeding ahead to close in on the Ryuusei Katanas.
No Astartes support...for now. Ikeda breathed a sigh of relief. At least they wouldn't have to face Heretic Astartes.
His relief vanished when the enemy Shadowsword fired. The hab-block beside the Titan Hunter company was obliterated, the shockwaves rocking the trio of super-heavy tanks, but they remained intact.
"Fire back! Take that out!" Ikeda barked. It would be disastrous if they lost even a single Shadowsword before they could take a shot at the Reaver Titan, which still remained out of sight. As one, the three Shadowswords retaliated, laser lances tearing through hab-blocks. One of them caught the foe, and the Shadowsword - its hull daubed with unholy sigils - vanished in a colossal conflagration.
To the side, Aethon Heavy Sentinels hammered the hab-block that a lasrifle tercio had taken cover in, killing over half the squad with anti-personnel missiles. The survivors ducked, scrambling for shelter even as the structure crumbled around them. To the center, Major Murakami and his command squad seized a data crystal that provided vital intelligence for Fleet Command before hauling it back to their Dracosan Demolisher.
"We aren't sticking around to get masssacred," the grizzled major growled, eying the legions of braying infantry that had swarmed the central cathedral. Way too many for them to count.
"Get that data crystal out of there!" Ikeda instructed through the vox, his fingers tightening over the device. "We need to get the vital intel to fleet command, no matter what!"
"What do you think we're trying to do?" Murakami snapped, poking the driver's seat. "Drive!"
"Trying, sir," the driver replied, swerving the armored transport through the cathedral. Fortunately, the enemy had more tempting targets. The Malcador tanks were firing at the Stormblade, but without much effect. Instead, it was the Reaver Titan - who had finally loomed out of its cover - that destroyed one of the two Stormblades under Colonel Ikeda's command. Ikeda watched in dismay as the Stormblade next to his vanished under a flurry of tank-sized shells from the Reaver Titan's gatling blaster. Even if Lieutenant Rikudo's Stormblade had survived the volley, the accurate blast from the turbo laser destructor definitely finished it off, obliterating the super-heavy and glassing the area.
"Reverse!" He barked at the tank driver, who obliged. The Stormblade shuddered under the sudden change in direction, the plasma blastgun coughing and disintegrating one of the Malcador Vanquishers. Above, a fleet of Lightnings dove, their twin lascannons and Hellstrike missiles leaving fiery contrails before impacting against the Reaver Titan and taking out its void shields in a thunderous bang. Explosions engulfed the Reaver's frame, but the immense walker simply strolled out of the expanding inferno.
The Leman Russ tanks spun their turrets about and fired, and one of the Lightnings crashed, taken out by a lucky shot despite its supersonic speed. The Leman Russ Executioners, on the other hand, wiped out the infantry horde that was swarming toward Murakami's second tercio, the plasma beams incinerating entire squads into ash.
The Valdors braked and fired their neutron lasers, and a speeding Malcador Infernus rocked, but remained intact. The lascannons missed, unfortunately, and they ducked out of sight, hiding behind a hab-block for cover.
The second squadron of Leman Russ tanks hammered the Dracosan of the first tercio, pummeling the armored transport and wrecking it. Suddenly, the survivors of the first squad found themselves stranded.
"Our job is to retrieve the information in those data stacks," Ikeda said, monitoring the situation in the hololith display within the command station aboard his Stormblade. He swiped at runes, trying to revise battle plans and rectify strategies. The Reaver remained a threat, striding toward them with its guns opening fire. "Forget any last stands, and just grab whatever data you can!"
"Trying," Sergeant Sato muttered, limping away as his squad broke out of cover and ferried the data stacks back toward the tank line. Unfortunately, the Malcador Infernus bore down on them...only for its flamethrower to miss. He shook his head in disbelief, thanking the God-Emperor for small mercies. "They actually missed us with their giant flamethrower."
His hope was destroyed the next second when the Leman Russ tanks opened fire, their battle cannons reducing the remnants of his squad to dust. Ikeda cursed, wondering if the enemy cared nothing for the vital data they were sent to retrieve, but saw on his auspex that it had somehow remained intact. And the tanks were now rolling toward the data crystals that lay next to Sato's corpse.
His Leman Russ Executioner tanks fired, taking out two of the Leman Russ battle tanks. The Dracosan tried to emulate them, but the surviving main battle tanks withstood the lascannon barrage before retaliating, reducing one of the Executioners to a smoking husk. The Reaver Titan fired, its gatling blaster swatting one of the darting Lightnings out of the air, but its laser blasters and turbo laser destructor completely missed the Shadowswords - though, understandably, it was still pretty far away from the trio of Titan Hunters. One of the laser beams struck and rocked a Shadowsword, but the venerable tank somehow remained intact despite all odds.
"Fire back!" Ikeda yelled, relief replacing his rage and fear. The Shadowsword commanders didn't need him to tell them twice. A volley of engine-killing beams lanced out, spearing through the collapsing void shields and punching through the head of the Legio Audax Titan. The Reaver slumped before crashing backward, its face now a smoking crater.
The surviving Lightnings pulled back, their Hellstrike missiles and lascannons spearing through the Malcador tanks and blowing them up. The Valdor tanks fired at the Aethon Sentinels, destroying them, while the Stormblade's plasma blastgun struck one of the Malcador Infernus, which detonated, its fuel tanks set alight by the esoteric beams. Its squadron mate swerved to the side, its armored hull blackened but otherwise undamaged from the flames that had engulfed its partner. Even so, the tank driver appeared unnerved by his squadron mate's demise, and the Infernus turned and pulled back.
The Chaos Ogryns, on the other hand, crashed into the second tercio and butchered them, with only a single squad remaining and somehow killing two of them with bayonets. They suffered 75% casualties, though, but somehow managed to toss the data stacks to the Leman Russ Executioner tanks, who retrieved them.
"We need to seize the initiative," Ikeda muttered, switching orders and instructing his tanks to change positions. His flexibility paid off, and the Shadowswords erased the Leman Russ battle tanks to the west, along with the Valdor's efforts. That prevented the data-stacks that the late Sato had retrieved from falling into the hands of the Traitors. The Stormblade didn't fire, having retreated because Ikeda somehow broke morale. It didn't matter - Ikeda planned to accelerate his Stormblade toward the fallen datastacks. On the other hand, the Leman Russ Executioners took out a third Leman Russ main battle tank while suffering no casualties in return this time, with it being three versus one now.
The third Dracosan fired its gravis lascannon, and despite the gunner's accuracy, he failed to punch through the thick armor of the Leman Russ tank. Meanwhile, Major Murakami's Dracosan and Command squad withdrew to the rear of their lines, ferrying the vital intelligence to safety and securing one of their secondary objectives. The cultists maintained control of the central cathedral, the sacred relics within a lost cause.
"We can't recover those," Ikeda admitted to himself. He should be satisfied with the vital intelligence and two data-crystals that his tanks had recovered. The Ogryns had massacred the last infantry squad, but should they leap out of the hab-block whose interior they had painted in blood, they would be annihilated by the waiting Leman Russ Executioner tanks, though admittedly they still had that last surviving Leman Russ battle tank to worry about. The Lightnings could handle that, though.
The third Dracosan was thundering toward the enemy's lines, to ensure that they didn't remain defiant under the Loyalists' onslaught. Hopefully, that would allow them to secure a foothold, even if they surrendered the cathedral to the traitors. Ikeda was all right with leaving it to them because he stood by the Imperial Truth and didn't hold much stake in Saints and the Imperial Cult. Though the citizens of Ryuusei believed in the divinity of the Emperor as the descendant of the Sun God, they didn't buy the zealotry that the preachers spread via the Lectitio Divinitatus.
"At least we won," he murmured. They must have lost all their infantry, but they maintained aerial and armored superiority. The Chaos Ogryns, perhaps realizing it was suicidal to leave the safety of their hab-block, had retreated instead of furiously charging the Leman Russ Executioner tanks, and even the enemy Leman Russ was reversing, pulling back. Ikeda thumbed the vox. "Don't pursue. Let's retrieve whatever data we can, and withdraw."
He would call in for an orbital strike on the cathedral later, as a final "feth you" to the Traitors celebrating their desecration of the supposedly holy site. The Ecclesiarchy could complain all they want later, but they weren't the ones risking their lives here.
Hopefully, the Lord Commander recovers the Nihilus half of the Imperium, Ikeda thought to himself, praying that the recently returned Primarch - Roboute Guilliman - would save them all. There was also a rumor regarding the "Knight of Nihilus" being another Primarch, but deep in Imperium Sanctus, it was hard to confirm such gossip.
Nonetheless, Ikeda was determined that the Ryuusei Katanas wouldn't fail the Primarch Reborn. They would follow the Avenging Son and save the Imperium from the traitors.
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